


Drugstore Cowgirl

by glassonion_archivist



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-04-07
Updated: 2002-04-07
Packaged: 2019-06-19 11:08:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15508653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassonion_archivist/pseuds/glassonion_archivist
Summary: you're a butterfly in the wind without a care/a pretty train crash to me and I can't care





	Drugstore Cowgirl

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Glass Onion](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Glass_Onion), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Glass Onion’s collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/glassonion/profile).

Drugstore Cowgirl

Title: Drugstore Cowgirl  
Author: Twinkledru J.  
Rating: PG  
Improv: #37 -- wait, shine, futile, group  
Disclaimer: Joss. Not me. I make no claim, either. Title and summary come from 311.  
Summary: you're a butterfly in the wind without a care/a pretty train crash to me and I can't care  
Notes: Giles/Faith. Post-"Gift", but there was no "Bargaining". No reborn Buffy. Instead, Faith got sprung by the Council, and she's taken over Sunnydale again. Archive anywhere, but I'd like to know so I can come visit it.

* * *

If he stayed very still and concentrated and felt just right, the spot where she had lain beside him last night was still warm in the very center, a space a few centimeters wide.

He wasn't at all surprised to find that she had left during the night -- in fact, he couldn't imagine why he might have thought she'd be inclined to do otherwise. That, after all, was something which only lovers did.

The sun, judging by the amount of light in the room (which was a great deal of it) had been up for some time. Its rays struck an ancient crystal which he kept on the sill, causing tiny spots of light to shine in patches of light on the off-white walls. As he always did when he awoke late enough to do so, he admired the phenomenon, ignoring for a moment his knowledge that it was just refracted light and caring only for the knowledge that it was lovely, really.

He wondered idly, eyes not really focusing on anything in the room but closest to focusing on the refracted spots of light, if she might've waited until he had begun to wake up to leave. It seemed like the sort of thing she would do, simply to spite the other party.

Or perhaps he was thinking too highly of himself in entertaining that notion; she would almost certainly not have waited any longer than suited her.

But she had waited for a while.

Perhaps for the sunrise; there was a certain clumsy symbolism in that action, exactly the sort of symbolism she might embrace. He, then, and sunrise in his home, represented a life she was not willing to live, or something to that effect. And her departing with the night, he considered, finding some satisfaction in continuing this train of thought, represented their respectively different worlds, and never the twain should meet, for though he might occasionally enter her world, she could never be a part of his.

He had not felt at all old last night, as he had believed he would. That was a bit strange, really; after all, sex with a girl more than half his age, and a Slayer besides, ought to have drained him a bit more.

But then, nothing about last night had been what he might have expected where sex with Faith was concerned.

She had been...out of character. Or rather, out of the character he had imagined as hers. She was careful. Gentle. Not at all what he would have expected, particularly not from what she had always referred to quite frankly as 'post-patrol horniness'. Faith he had always pegged as...well, as the 'wham-bam-thank you ma'am (and/or sir?)' type.

Perhaps she was. Perhaps he had been the lucky exception. Perhaps she'd just been afraid she'd break the frail old man. Of course, Faith had rarely been one to worry about others' safety in her own endeavors.

It was, he decided, quite futile to try to analyze it, the truth was. She had always been determined to be an enigma to the entire group, himself, Wesley, and every other Watcher who'd attempted to take her charge, and why now should be any different, he truly couldn't fathom.

As he pulled himself out of bed, he thought once more that she really hadn't been what he'd expected at all.

* * *


End file.
